


The Roaming Eye

by Geminisister



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Humour, Island living., Original Work. - Freeform, Scottish Dialect, True Tale, gaelic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 10:32:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19743892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geminisister/pseuds/Geminisister
Summary: When a simple bus ride into town turns into a nightmare.  It takes a true friend to go above and beyond to help restore a lost item.An original  true storyFor Jenni - a real true friend x.





	The Roaming Eye

The Roaming Eye

The elderly bus struggled up to the top of the hill. Gears crunched with an earsplitting sound that sets your teeth on edge. Engine fumes making its passengers cough that had to be wafted away with a hand.  
  
A massive sigh all round from the passengers, as the bus topped the hill and almost silently free wheeled down and along the narrow and blustery road to the next person waiting for the bus.  
  
'Hello!' Greeted Jenni, as she clambered up the steps onto the bus.  
'I’m glad to get a seat, its blowing a gale out there!'  
  
She sat down next to me and carried on with a conversation we had begun three days previous, as if we had not had a gap in the middle. We were old friends and used to picking up where we had left off.  
  
'How’s the eye getting along?' She asked with a chuckle.  
  
I responded with a grimace. 'A pain in the bum, it is not sitting in quite right, it pops out from time to time for no apparent reason.'  
  
'It is looking good though,' she replied, as she moved in for a closer look. 'Your socket does not look red any longer.'  
  
'The drops help, shame it feels like I have a football in my head.'  
  
'That lassie did a grand job making it.'  
  
'Miss Liddle, yes, she hand painted it herself, she has matched my other eye apparently very well.'  
  
Jenni, looked from one of my eyes to the other sizing them up. 'Pretty good match, hard to tell which is which.'  
  
'I can tell!' I chuckled and gave my artificial eye another prod, to ensure it was in place secure and safe for now.  
  
An eye being removed can be such a big deal, but for me it had been a relief. Years of agony, due to pressure, disease and other things going on. I was pain free for the first time in years. Blind now totally but I did not care, I was pain free and with my guide dog and my friends I got on just great.  
  
A trip into town with my friend Jenni, was a first for me since I had come home with my ‘new eye’.  
  
The bus trundled along, while the wind buffeted it back and forth along the island road. New passengers came on and old ones got off.  
We were on the last part of the trip into Town. The pressure from the wind outside made the bus windows pop open. This happened often, but for some unknown reason my ears popped at the exact same time.  
  
Then the worst thing of all happened, my eye decided to pop out! It must have dislodged slightly. Before I could put my hand up to stop it, it had flown off to who knows where.  
  
Thankfully, Jenni saw it happen  
  
'Where has it gone?' I asked gasping for breath as I tried to compose myself. I only hoped my glasses disguised the fact my eye had gone from my socket.  
  
Jenni had bent down to the bus floor to look for it. It was beyond her reach. She stretched out to get it but the bus began to go down a hill into Stornoway.  
  
'Oh no!' Jeni whispered to me, 'It has rolled off down the bus.'  
She tittered as she stood up and added. 'I can see it, it is under the driver’s seat.'  
  
I was mortified. Why did this type of thing happen to me?  
  
The wind had been whipping about making it hard to hear conversations on board the bus. We turned a corner and the wind dropped, not only that the bus became silent as Jenni approached the driver, all conversations stopped.  
  
'My friend has lost her eye, it has rolled under your seat!' She had to repeat it before the bus driver fully understood her.  
  
'You can look for it when we stop at the bus station.' He had answered sounding horrified.  
  
'What went under the driver’s seat?'  
  
'Did she lose some money?'  
  
'Probably a fifty pence piece?'  
  
'I am sure I heard she said it was an eye.'  
  
'Dinnae be stupid!'  
  
'It’s an eye she said'  
  
'Are you alright, mo ghràidh?'  
  
The whole bus was talking about it. As the bus emptied, my guide dog, Midge, woke uphaving slept through the whole thing. She popped up her German shepherd head to look about her. As if to ask, 'What’s going on? What did I miss?'  
  
Jenni waited until everyone had exited the bus. She asked the driver if she could retrieve the eye.  
  
'I’m not picking it up!' Yelled the driver, spotting the eye on the floor at his feet. It was looking up at him. Jenni bent down and picked it up as the driver scuttled out of the way in a hurry, as if the eye was going to bite him.  
  
I was glad to get my eye back. It was undamaged but needed a good clean before I could use it.  
  
For months after I was asked how my eye was getting along by many people when out and about.  
  
A friend jokingly remarked on hearing the tale, was most surprised it had not made the Stornoway Gazette! I was very thankful it had not.

END

**Author's Note:**

> This really happened to me on a bus travelling from Point in the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. I was mortified to lose my eye on its maiden trip out haha.
> 
> Translation  
> mo ghràidh? Means My Dear.
> 
> This tale was written for the Scottish Book Blethers . It was published in there electronic Blethers Issue number 16 on 9 July 2019 using my real full name.
> 
> The issue contains many short stories and poems by Scottish people, written in their own words and dialects.


End file.
